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Episode Overview:
In the captivating podcast episode titled "Unlocking Young Women Through Empowerment," host Skot Waldron engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Christina Meade, an advocate for gender equality and youth empowerment. Meade's extensive experience and expertise shine through as she discusses the challenges faced by young women in today's society and offers practical strategies for empowerment. From emphasizing the importance of mentorship, education, and community engagement to sharing inspiring success stories, Meade inspires listeners to create supportive environments that encourage young women to embrace their strengths, overcome societal barriers, and pursue their dreams. This enlightening episode underscores the transformative power of empowering young women and leaves the audience motivated to take action and contribute to a more inclusive and empowering future.
Additional Resources:
Today, we are going to talk about Nerdy Girls. And specifically, about Nerdy Girl Success. That's a nonprofit organization headquartered in Houston, Texas, and led by Christina Meade. She is a self-proclaimed nerdy girl, and we're going to talk a little bit about her organization and why she started. It's only three years old, but it's really grown up a lot. You're going to hear about her philosophy and what she's doing to instill confidence and competence in these young women to help them become leaders in our society.
So she started this organization, Nerdy Girl Success, and the mission is to prepare and support young women to become the decision makers across all industries, thus making their impact on society. And that is huge. And then we talk about gender stereotypes, we talk about the diversity in leadership and the problem with diversity in leadership that we have now, and it's getting better. It's starting to move in the right direction. There's still a long way to go and I think we'd all agree with that. But we talk a little bit about that and about Gen Zers because that's who she's working with is that generation, and COVID and the impact of that on them. We talk about a beautiful story at the end about one of the successes that came out of their organization. You got to stay tuned for that. So anyway, without further ado, let's go. Here we come, Christina.
Christina, it is so good to have you on the show.
Christina Meade:
Well, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Skot Waldron:
Well, I am... So you actually came as a referral to somebody else I had on this show, which is super exciting. I love when guests refer other guests because then I don't have to look for them, but it's because they have been on the show and they like the show and the context of the show. And then they refer somebody else who, "Oh, you should talk to this person," which means you have fans. So that must feel good, but I want to... So you run Nerdy Girl Success. It's a nonprofit, it's three years old, but you have grown quite a bit in those three years. A lot of people, they kind of move slower in the nonprofit space and they build up over time and whatnot, but you've grown pretty quick in this space. So first off, start with a little background about where you came from and then tell us about Nerdy Girl and why you even started this organization in the first place.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Sure. Thank you for the question. So Nerdy Girl Success, like you said, we're about three years old. The way that we started, I'm a former middle school and high school science teacher. I was in education for about 16 years. And then about 2011, I left education, had the opportunity to leave and joined my husband in his particular business that he had started, videography company. And for me, I'd never been in business, never been a business owner, never knew any business owners. So I started doing research. That was the scientist in me doing some research trying to find some help along the way, and that's when I think my eyes were really kind of opened up to the, well, it wasn't exactly the way that I thought it was when I was in education.
And it came through different things of like books that I was reading or being recommended to read were all written by men. Case studies were almost exclusively about men in business. Even quotes that were in there, inspirational quotes in there were by men. And so just something that was just really kind of pinging with me is like, where are all the women? And so, when doing the research of just seeing that the representation in upper leadership within corporations and even like in government wasn't there like I thought it was going to be. That's really what spurred my desire for then Nerdy Girl Success and the work that we do.
SKOT WALDRON:
So, why did you call it Nerdy Girl? Tell me about that. Where'd that come from?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
That's a really interesting story because in all honesty, this did not start out as a nonprofit. I had like there was this piece that I wanted to do, but then I was also like, "Oh, I want to do office supplies and I can be my own business. And so I'm just going to mash the two together." I did not have a very good name for it. And so I actually put it out on Facebook of like, "Hey, this is what I'm looking to do. Anybody, any creative minds out there have a good name for it?"
And actually a woman's 12-year-old daughter, she was discussing it with her 12-year-old daughter and was like, "Hey, what should she call this?" And the little girl was like, "Nerdy Girl." And so I was like, "Yes." Everybody hopped on. Loved it. And so I started looking at Nerdy Girl. Lots of variations of Nerdy Girl. And so obviously couldn't go with just that. So I was like, what are we wanting to promote and to do? And it was success that was... Nerdy Girl Success is how that came to be. So again, it was an inspiration from a young woman.
SKOT WALDRON:
That is so cool. But that's who you serve and that's where the name came. Great. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love that you crowdsourced it too. We did a lot of brand strategy and naming for companies in the past. And naming's really hard. I mean, it's very, very difficult. And to own a name and all the things that go into a name and what it says and et cetera, it's pretty tough. I love that it came from a 12-year-old. You never know what's going to come out of that. And that's really, really cool. So back up a little bit, you said in education you thought that it was going to be different on the outside. What did you think it was going to be?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
I honestly thought that there was going to be much more representation of women in those upper leadership positions. I really thought that. And I guess because I came from a workplace that it's honestly, I mean, when you look at it, now at least, it's a lot of women. Depends on the topic area that you get into, but there's a lot of women in education. And so being around them and being surrounded by a lot of women throughout my work day every day for 16 years, when I got out and then just when I started doing networking and that kind of thing, and then just looking at who was saying what jobs they had, it just started hitting me differently.
And then when we were actually going to two video shoots, the reaction that we got from some of our clients was very interesting. I'm in an interracial marriage. So like literally we had one video shoot that we went to where the gentleman didn't really know who to look at and who to try to take direction from because he's like, "I don't get it. There's a lady here and there's a black gentleman here." I'm like, "Who's in charge?" Kind of like it's one out of the many years the business was, but still it's just like, that's one of my very first experiences though too.
So just kind of like I really thought the world by now was different. And then just having the opportunity to... Not the opportunity, but taking the time to listen to more news and things like that. And I think too like social media was becoming a little bit more prevalent at the time. And so being on Facebook and seeing all of these first by women and it's like, well, this is like 2013, 2014. How is this the first time that we've had a woman in this position kind of thing. And that's one of the things too that really hit me is just like, I just, I would've thought we would've had the first by now.
SKOT WALDRON:
So your eyes were opened to that reality. Now, let me ask you really quick about education in that space. Yes, when we look at teachers, 95% of them are women. I would just say 95, just because I'm rounding, right? But let me ask you about, and I don't know, so I'm asking you. When you get up into upper level leadership, whether it's principals or if it's board, when we get up to the education board or we get up to that level, is it still majority women in that space or do you start to see a lot more men coming into those roles?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
In my experience, and I was in four different school districts. So actually when I started teaching, we had a female superintendent, which was not a norm necessarily. You see a lot more female principals I think at elementary school levels than you do at middle school and high school levels. But I think that even is starting to change a little bit. But yeah, definitely in the upper leadership when you get into the admin building. But even then, like I said, I really feel like, through my experiences that I had, it definitely felt like maybe top, top leadership more men, but it was just a matter of seeing still like... I'm sorry, I'm rambling a little bit, but I really feel like, at least in my experiences, that there was a fair number delineation within male and female. But definitely like superintendents still definitely are I think predominantly male.
SKOT WALDRON:
Are they? Okay. Yeah. I was just curious and I'm sure it's different in different areas of the country and different districts and whatever you serve in. So that was your personal experience. Fair. So when you started this, like what was your idea? I mean, so yes, you want more representation. You want more female representation in leadership, right? That's kind of the big idea if I understand that correctly.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Correct.
SKOT WALDRON:
So when you started Nerdy Girl Success, how are you making that happen? What's the point of the nonprofit and how are you getting people on board and excited about this thing and what are you providing that the world needs?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Awesome. So part of it was like I did a lot... Again, the scientist in me doing a lot of research of why is there this lack of, especially when I'm seeing all of these STEM organizations. So Nerdy Girl Success isn't an exclusively STEM organization, but seeing all of these different organizations that are doing things with girl confidence and with getting girls into STEM careers and things. Just looking at then where's the gap? Why is there a gap and what's causing it? And so doing a research of, has anybody done any studies as to why this is happening? And what a lot of the research is showing is that girls are more aware. Now because of those programs, girls are more aware of some of these opportunities that are male dominated being there, but they're still choosing stereotypically female careers and not going to that leadership.
And some of that is built in just the way society is raising girls. But then also what those studies showed is that then if they took those girls and they gave them the opportunity and exposure to talking to women who were in those careers and getting to job shadow and see what it's actually like to be a woman in that career, girls career aspirations were starting to shift out of those stereotypical female careers into some of those more male dominated fields.
And then it's also the point of trying to get them to stay in those particular careers. And so that's why we're there is to help these young women know early on what these success strategies are for being a woman in this particular field. And we go at it from the aspect of wanting to show them the women who are in that upper leadership position in all of these different careers. My thinking being is that if we show them the heights of where they can get to and that it is great and that it is awesome and this is how to handle it, that they'll stay in that track and continue being there for the longevity of the career.
SKOT WALDRON:
Or at least have the option. At least be able to make the choice for themselves, because when I talk to a lot of people, and especially when I'm coaching women, I say there's a lot of oughts and shoulds of society placed upon females. It is you ought to be this, you should be this. And there's a lot of that pressure. And even when I'm coaching about identities and roles in life, and this is always Skot's claim, okay, and everybody can fight me on this if you want to. But I think women's identities are more complex than men's in society. And I feel that as I've coached them over time, especially when I'm coaching on personality and communication tactics and health, they're always saying, "Well, am I doing this as the mom or am I doing this as the employee or the boss or am I doing this as a community member, like on the PTA board, right?
It's like this messy kind of complex situation. And men are just like, I go to work and I come home and my identity's around work and the expectation of culture is that I work and that I kill the food and I bring it home and that's kind of what I do, right?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Exactly.
SKOT WALDRON:
And yes, they're dads. I don't want to downplay that and I don't want to downplay their contribution to the community because there's a lot of boy scout leaders and people that coach and other things like that that play a big role. But I don't know. I just feel like it's a little bit more messy for those oughts and shoulds. Have you seen that play into that female identity of... Have you felt it, like Hey, Christina, you ought to be this and you should be this, not that.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Oh absolutely. I think as a society, girls tend to be raised as people pleasers. It is definitely... I saw a little clip of, oh, I can't remember her name right now off the top of my head, but she was talking about the way that the value of women is that like how do we serve others? And so that's why it's totally when your female clients are talking about, well, what perspective am I coming at this from when communicating? It's that how I'm going to communicate is how I'm serving this person. How will I be valued in this particular community?
And there's a lot of too of just the way that we come across of trying to be aggressive or whatever is, are we really being aggressive or are we standing up for ourselves? Are we sharing our opinion and standing firm with our opinion and our thoughts or are we truly being aggressive? And I think those are things that are more harshly put on women than they are on men. I think men have a little bit of a reverse of where it's being too feminine, too girly or whatever, being too emotional. But I don't think even in that, again, not my living experience so I don't know, but it definitely feels like that women are more harshly judged when we get out of that norm of communicating and acting than men are.
SKOT WALDRON:
I can see that and I can agree with that as well. Let me ask you about leadership in general. So what does leadership mean to you and why is this lack of diversity in leadership such a problem for where we're going in the future?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Leadership to me today, I mean, I think across the board no matter what decade you're in, I definitely think that leadership has always been that thing that can make or break a company, make or break a country, whatever. But like today I think leadership needs to be within something of being willing to be introspective, to be able to ask those hard questions, to be able to willing to answer those questions and to make adjustments. So really like that flexibility and creativity are really things that I think are needed in leadership today.
I think then diversity plays into that because of, again, those societal ways that men and women are raised right now that some of that flexibility, some of that creativity are things that are in a strong suit for women. And so those companies that don't have that diversity don't have some of those skills that are kind of being built through in a lifetime within a particular person. But then it's also the lived experiences that individuals have that come to a company, that come into leadership that can help a company thrive not just with their consumers but also with their workforce.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's really good. Really good. We are missing out on aspects of that. And there's going to be people out there that claim and they just say, "Hey, I can fill that gap. I can do that. We don't need that." And we see this not only with gender but we see it with age, we see it with race, and we also see it with just communication style in general, right?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Absolutely.
SKOT WALDRON:
So you're going to have louder voices that dominate airspace and that can dictate. Then you have other voices that are more reserved introspective. They have this internal perspective on things where they keep a lot of things in their head, introverted thinking. Everybody thinks that we don't need that because we've got this, but really we're missing out on having all those voices at the table is something that's really, really important, especially when we're talking about diversity. So what age group do you work with at Nerdy Girl Success?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
So we primarily work with young women in high school into college right now. There's definitely going to be within the growth of working down into middle school. But right now it's high school and into college.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. So is this Gen Z that you're working with?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Gen Z. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. All right. So I'm doing a lot of multicultural workplace where I just did one two days ago talking to an organization about multi-general workforces and how to lead a multi-generational workforce. This is the first time in history that we know of that we have five generations in the workforce. Crazy, right? But so much opportunity.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Absolutely.
SKOT WALDRON:
So tell me about the Gen Zers. Tell me about the opportunity for them and what we can gather from this generation.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Gen Z, the young women that I work with, I'm just like, I wish I were more like you when I was your age in that I think that like... I'm Gen X. And so I think that I had a lot of the thoughts and desires that Gen Z does. What they have that I don't is the unabashedness, just willingness to speak their mind to people in authority positions. And I think that's great. I think that their willingness to do that and their unwillingness to accept less I think is amazing.
Definitely I have high hopes for Gen Z, but I also there's a point where I hope that my generation and even millennial generation, and if they happen to work with boomers, don't tamp that down because there is a lot of value in what they have to say. They're very savvy. They understand a lot of things that I don't think that they get credit for. And I think that leadership who is willing to listen to that and take that into account will be a much stronger company for it. Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's really good. There was something I was doing that was interesting about Gen Zers in my research that I was looking at and when I was thinking about it. They were born into a world of global terror. Like they've never known a life without global terror or war. And this is something that's really interesting when you think about the way we grow up in the society, we grow up and the cultures we grow up in. How is that affecting us and how does that affect where we communicate? How does that affect our perspective on global economies? They're really a first generation with a world language, like they're diverse in the way they communicate. They're not afraid to just talk to somebody in China and just start a conversation. Language barriers are not really there anymore. The digital space has created a lot of that.
Let me ask you though... So some of the gifts and strengths of the Gen Zers are there. Let me ask you though about some of the challenges for the Gen Zers, some of the things that I've seen and I'm going to pull these out and you can say yes, Skot, or that's not what I'm seeing, and kind of fight me on it a little bit. Number one is that they don't provide challenge well as far as they could be more conflict averse or they tend to hide behind a digital device, right? Or some, because it's just that thing that protects them from truly affecting another person in a negative way, which I don't think that they want to do, but they kind of use the digital device to block that. I think a lot of generations will probably tend to do that more now. And then the attention span. They have a very, very short attention span. I don't know if that's a negative necessarily as much as it is something we need to learn to adapt to. But what do you say about those two things?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
So I'm here and I'm nodding and I'm giggling because I'm like, absolutely. So one of the things that I'm trying to work with them is that it's okay to challenge things, it's the manner in which that you challenge. So really helping them finesse like, it's okay to go up to somebody and say like, "I don't agree with this. I think this needs to be done this X, Y or Z way, or I don't agree with your thinking on that." Helping them finesse that so that way the ears that are receiving it are receptive to that. And then also getting them to realize that when someone is pushing back on their ideas, that it isn't devaluing you and your thought, it's just this is a conversation that we're having and that you can do that and being able to come back and have that back and forth kind of conversation.
And then definitely yes, they are the age that grew up with the internet. The internet was already there, social media was already there and going, and well, they're starting to use it. So that makes them much quicker to go out and find things, to research some things. But then it's also teaching them of like the validity of the source, like looking a little bit more of like where is that information coming from and testing that before popping off with your idea, because I think there's a lot of that piece that I've seen happening is that, "Well, I read this here." It's "Okay. Well, what source is that?" "Well, that's Wikipedia." "Okay. Well, let's look at the value of that source and how credible that is."
So really helping them kind of finesse that. And definitely I would say too that I would agree with the verbal communication, the spoken communication. That was one of the things that when I first went to the high school and was talking to the girls and was introducing myself, pre COVID, hand out to do a handshake, the number of girls that looked at it like it was this foreign object, like what is this that's sticking out at me, as they look up from their phone and just like, "What?" And so like, "Hi, I'm Christina." And getting the um. And then walking on or like the sheer tear of the hand sticking out or like I would have some girls who would, "Hi, I'm," and would respond with their name, but then not know what to do with the hands. Like that was the first thing I was like, "Okay, we're going to learn how to look up from the phone and introduce yourself to someone in person rather than on the phone or digitally versus doing texts." So just it's been interesting to see them navigating that.
SKOT WALDRON:
That is interesting. And now that COVID has accelerated the fear of the handshake a little bit, right? I mean, I even still, when somebody sticks out a hand, or I think, am I going to shake this person's hand? Like I think about that now. Like are they going to want to shake my hand? Do I just fist bump? Or whatever. Like it's we never had to think about that before. And this generation was maybe having a harder time with that but pre COVID. So what are the effects of COVID on this generation, because they are a COVID generation. They are. And I heard that, what's the next generation going to be called? I think Seth Gordon was talking about this. Maybe Generation C, they were talking about that generation of COVID or conflict, global conflict or whatever it is that they were talking about. So I don't know, it's an interesting idea, but what has COVID... What do you think the impact has been of COVID on this generation?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
I'm just thinking about my girls now, like the girls that I have in our two clubs here in Houston area. And this year, over the last couple of years, just I see their frustration sometimes of just wanting to have that "normal year." I mean, it's similar to how us as adults are feeling. Like I just want things to go back to normal and just how it just keeps having these bumps in the road. But I think too, though, it's showing them they've got the opportunity to see how work can be different because it's always been a lot of this work is outside and now how work can be a little bit different. And so showing them that there's that difference.
But within COVID, I mean, I saw like when we did the... We did a summit in Chicago and just seeing, again, some of that tentativeness again, but being that new layer of COVID is just like, how do I do this now and how is... That's very much on their mind of how does COVID change with the workplaces? How does COVID change how my college years are going to be like now? So there was a lot of those questions at the summit.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. Do you sense anxiety about that or is it just frustration?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
I didn't sense anxiety. I sensed unsure, questioning like I don't know how this is going to be. So uncertainty and some frustration as well because they're just like.... Like the girls this year, just every time we were getting ready to go and do something, go and get ready to do a field trip, and school's like, "Just kidding, COVID." So frustration for sure. I think they're just, like the rest of us, they're ready for it to be done as it were.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So when we talk about leadership skills to prepare them for the future, what are you working with them on right now that is going to help prepare them for that future opportunity and leadership or to make their own path and take that on if it presents itself or if they create that opportunity for themselves?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
One of it is like with creating the opportunities, honestly part of it is showing them the opportunities that are out there. A lot of them like, again, when we had the summit, having girls coming up and telling me like, "Thank you, I didn't know these things were things." And so just letting them see that not only is this a career field, but then it's possible for a woman who looks like me to be in this leadership position in the career field.
Within that too, again, it's some of that finessing of how you communicate with people. Really helping them understand what company culture is and why is that important. And then finding the right company culture for them. Like what do they value, and then finding the company that fits with them instead of trying to do the trial and error kind of that I think some of us have done before.
And showing them, like I said, really getting them connected with women who can help show them those success strategies of it's okay to think things differently. It's okay to have your own leadership style. I think very much for my generation, I'm not as quite sure with the millennial generation, but with my generation it was very much, with women in leadership, it was to act like a man. And I don't know how much that has filtrated down into the younger generations, but really letting them see that you have your own leadership style, figuring out what that is and knowing that that's okay and your leadership style can look different from somebody else's.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. And take pride in that. There's a lot of, I've been looking into this quite a bit and there's a mantra that I used when a coach called know yourself, lead yourself, right? Know yourself well, know your tendencies well so you can lead yourself appropriately. And I've thrown something in the middle there because I noticed a lot of statistics, especially with younger females, and the lack of self worth and understanding and the self confidence that is eroding from 1st grade to 12th grade at a rapid rate. It's crazy the statistics that you see where I don't even remember the statistics, but it's something like in 1st grade, they tested at like a 90, 95% self confidence rate. Like they had so much self confidence. They would conquer the world. They could do anything they wanted to.
And then by 12th grade it's like a 15%, or something. It's crazy that rapid decline. And looking at that, I sit there and go, okay, so it's not only about knowing yourself, but it's also about loving yourself and then leading yourself well. So it's taking pride in who you are, taking pride in your unique abilities to do what you want to do and going on and conquering using that and not trying to be everybody else. I think that's really cool that you're reinforcing that concept and helping them understand that.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
That's really too about giving them, sorry.
SKOT WALDRON:
No, no, please.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
It's really about giving them the fortitude to stand in their own strengths because I think part of it is that when they're little, we're telling girls no matter what age they're, you can be anything you want to be, go. All you have to do is work hard in everything. And we tell them that, and then they go out into society and society has a different answer for them. Society doesn't tell them they can be whatever they want to be. Society doesn't say, "No, you can fit in here." That doesn't happen. And so within some of the research that I've done too of learning what can I do to help with young women, don't know if it's wiring. I don't know if it's society, if it's a mixture of both, but there's definitely a difference between the way that men and boys view failure versus girls and young women and women.
We as women tend to internalize when there are things that are wrong. There's something wrong with me. If I didn't get a good grade on a test or whatever, there's something wrong with me. Whereas boys have a tendency to just brush it off. Well, that wasn't a fair test, or something. It's something outside of them. And so just helping girls then see that it's like, even for me, I would like to take failure out of the dictionary completely. It's a learning opportunity. And so getting them to flip that script that there's nothing wrong with you because that mistake happened. There's nothing wrong with you because society isn't saying that you fit here. It's just it's, I don't think it's their responsibility to fix that. I think it's ours as the adults to fix that. So I think that's where some of that comes from.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah, I like that. And there's a book. John Maxwell, leadership guru, he wrote a book called Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn. It's a really good principle. We even read that to our kids when they were younger and we use that mantra still. Sometimes it's really good philosophy. Let me read something that you wrote if I may about the biggest mistake you feel companies are making when it comes to company culture. You say that in general, it's built to support the men and company culture is set by leadership.
Now, you make a point to say it's not that they're trying to say women are inferior, it's not what they're trying to say, but they're saying that when leadership is homogenous, you say it tends to only see things from that one perspective and create a system that supports that. So it just falls into this trap of we think this way, we've always thought this way. This is the culture we're creating, so we just need to fit it and it just rolls this way. But it can be really harmful when we get stuck in that. So how do we get out of that? How do we.... I don't know, like do you have the magic wand that'll fix that?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
I wish I did. I know. I wish I did. To be honest with you, I think that it's starting. It really is. It's leadership being willing to be insightful of like, okay, there's an issue here. And having that mindfulness of recognizing the problem and being, I guess, thick skinned enough to say, "All right, not my fault, but let's fix it." So again, like I said earlier, just the flexibility and creativity really needing to be there in leadership I think of. That mindfulness of being able to look at we have people who are telling us that this is a problem. This is a problem. Okay, valuing that, and then being willing to find the solutions to fix that.
I mean, I think that's really something that needs to be... Being willing to see things from other perspectives. And it isn't just a man thing. Like for me, we don't have children. And so I had no concept of what it was really like to try to be a woman at work and then coming home and taking care of kids until we had my mother and grandmother move in with us. And that gave me a whole new perspective of what being a caregiver and then also having to have the full-time job as well. Understanding then the nuances that come with that.
And so I think within leadership of being able to recognize and listen to and value those nuances which I think again only happens really well if you've got diversity within that leadership to be able to have those different perspectives coming in at times that you don't think about. I'm reading a book called Invisible Women. I've got it right here. A Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. And just really taking different instances of not realizing how a particular gender or part of society is being overlooked just because of the fact that you're not that part of society and how that can be unintentional but harmful. Harmful to that group of people. Again, depending on what problem you're looking at, can even be harmful for the company because you're not taking a good look at your entire consumer base, whether it's a product or a service.
SKOT WALDRON:
We're at the end here, but I want to... Do you have a story of a young woman that has had an impact through your organization or maybe some other organization that inspired you or whatever. Is there some personal story you could share?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Well, I just actually had a young lady recently just reach out to me. She's been with our organization. She's now a college student. She started out with our career prep program and she moved into being a teen volunteer. And so when she moved into being a teen volunteer, we were having a meeting about like, because they can write for our blog or they can do our podcast. They could do graphic designs for us and things. When we talked about the opportunities and then asked them which one suits you, she says, "Well, I think I'd really like to be a writer, but English isn't my first language. So I don't think I would be very good at it. So I think I'll just stick with graphic design."
And I pushed back a little bit. I was like, "Hey, totally okay if you want to stick with graphic design, but I would like to challenge you to write. The best way to get better at something is to do it a lot." And so she agreed to and we set a deadline two weeks from now. I'm not kidding you, when I woke up the next morning, I had an article written from her, beautiful article. I was like, "This is amazing." So just giving her that confidence.
And then, like I said, she's gone off to college. She emailed me back last month and told me about how she was so excited because she had two job interviews coming up and that she felt like she was going to nail both of those job interviews because of how we had prepared her in the career prep program but then just through the things that she's done with the organization, the confidence that she had also gotten. So she felt she had the skills and the confidence to be able to handle both of those job interviews. And she did, in fact, get a job over from both companies and was able to take her pick. So that was just-
SKOT WALDRON:
Oh gosh. It's so cool.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
I know. I was like, this is awesome. Yeah. So exactly. I was amazed by that.
SKOT WALDRON:
Oh, that's so cool. I thought you were going to leave us hanging in and not tell us [crosstalk 00:41:06] the offers yet, but that's awesome.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Yeah, she did. Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
Oh, well, that's so cool for her. That's really great. And that's so rewarding I'm sure for you to feel of that impact and to have that and to have her come back and say, "Hey, thank you for this." That's so amazing. I love it. So what can people... What do you need right now? What do you need at Nerdy Girl? What do you need from my audience? What do you need from everyone right now up for Nerdy Girl Success?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Honestly, what would be amazing is for people to share our organization. We really are looking to get people to know that our organization exists, to get our programs into schools, to get our program into different, whether it be like a girl scout troop or something like that, but into... For people to know about us to either so that way they can volunteer with us. We are definitely looking for company partners, and I definitely say company partners rather than company sponsors. We definitely are looking for companies who want to partner with us for the long term with working with the young women that we do. So that would be amazing, connections to companies.
SKOT WALDRON:
And you're talking across country?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Across country, yeah. So while we are based here in the Houston, Texas area, we just did our first thanks... Again, our COVID story is that like we've always had the growth idea of being nationwide and worldwide. COVID just helped accelerate that for us, for sure. So we've actually started working in Chicago and we're looking for our third location before the end of the year. So definitely nationwide.
SKOT WALDRON:
Wow. And in three years.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Yeah. And in three years, yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's amazing. That is so cool for you. Oh Christina, you're amazing. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for being an advocate for those young women out there. They need it, right? We all do. Glad you're a champion for them. So thanks and good luck to you. If people want to get in touch with you, how do they do that?
CHRISTINA MEADE:
LinkedIn is a great place to reach out, I'm there, and to learn about Nerdy Girl Success. We've got a LinkedIn page there. We're also on Facebook, Instagram, any place.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. Very cool. Well, have an awesome day. Thanks for the insights and sharing your story with us. Appreciate it.
CHRISTINA MEADE:
Thanks so much.
SKOT WALDRON:
There was a specific word that stuck out to me during that interview, and it was all about being different. It was all about thinking different. I mean, COVID created an opportunity for them to think differently, for the members or the recipients of Nerdy Girl Success and their contribution that they're making to think about their careers differently. It's okay to lead differently. To have an identity and to have a perspective that is uniquely yours is really, really important. And to not try to fit the mold of what everybody else expects of you, but to really take on an identity of yourself. To learn to appreciate that identity, love that identity, understand that has value and then use that identity in the best way possible to create impact.
And Christina is using this idea of philosophy to really instill, like I said, confidence, competence in these young women. As you heard in that last story, that's what happened, right? It was all about kind of the task of writing first, but what did that do for her emotionally that young woman is it instilled that confidence, the competence that she was like, "Ah, I don't know. This isn't my first language." And then going into that was really, really monumental for her. And getting these two job offers, awesome success stories.
So I'm really grateful for Christina and her efforts and all the people out there that are trying to make a difference like this for the young people of our world because they are the future. And I say that kind of corny, but it's true, right? If we don't take care of our young people today, we are going to all suffer later and we do not want that to happen. So I'm grateful for her, I'm grateful for all you. Thanks for being here. If you want to find out more about me and what I do and developing companies and cultures and leaders, then you can go to skotwaldon.com. You can visit me on LinkedIn, connect with me there, and on YouTube. I put a lot of free content on YouTube and would love for you to like, subscribe, comment there. Thank you everybody. See you next time on another episode of Unlocked.
